Fortunately analysis is not the only way to resolve inner conflicts. Life itself still remains a very effective therapist.

Month: September 2016

It’s getting colder, more rain, less sun and the nice weather is coming to an end. It’s becoming more of an effort to get dressed, wind breakers in the morning, socks and shoes and soon we will break out the dreadful winter gear.

I’m not trying to make you all mad talking about the weather changes, I’m sure you’re all aware of the weather changes in Michigan lately. So I will get to the point.

Remember the great days, long night and hot days.

“Good times become good memories, and bad times become good lessons”.Over the last year I have broken through so many walls I was fearful to even talk about. I have really began to grow into a deeper understanding of my daughters and have fallen in love when I told myself “never again“.

I had so many fears and bad thoughts about life and anger consuming my heart. Bitterness and resentment was running my life and guiding every decision. But the sun rose again, the clouds parted and I am alive to make my life different. I can remember the good now and it doesn’t change my day, I can look at pictures and it no longer takes me to a dark place. There is a season for everything, a time for happiness and a time for sadness. Learning that nothing will stay the way it is forever is a relief sometimes.

Enjoy the good days, cherish the time that fills your heart and hold onto the little moments that take your breath away. Hug your children often, hug your loved one when you can and if there’s something that needs to be said, don’t wait.

One day what you have will be gone! Our children grow and move on into their own lives, our loved ones pass on and our own body’s begin to wear out. I only get this time, these few years on earth to live. Thinking that one day I will be too old to enjoy the crazy life of my youth is more than enough to overcome my fear and do what I want to do today.

How do your regrets feel… Quit adding to the list and do what your heart desires. As long as you hold respect, integrity, love and appreciation in your heart, live the life you would like to live.

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I will be completely honest; I am nowhere near where I would have told you I would be 5 years ago. I never planned having my surgery changing how I have to eat, I never planned to be divorced, and it was never in my dreams to only see my daughters 50 percent of the time…

It has completely destroyed how I dream and plan for the future and at the same time opened up so many opportunities in my life. I have learned so many things going through everything I have been through.

I used to dream often about the future, dreaming of what it will be like, where I will be, what I will have and how my life will be. As I get older the dreams have decreased considerably and the reality that my dreams are nothing more than a hope for how I would like my life to end. The truth is I don’t really dream much for the future, and it’s not out of depression or hopelessness. It’s from the understanding and acceptance that nothing we plan for is guaranteed.

“There are all kinds of futures. There is a hoped-for future, there is a feared future, there is a predictable future, and there is an unimagined future”. – Werner Erhard

I have hope for the future and more importantly I have found gratitude for today, it’s what I find in today that will shape and mold tomorrow not what I dream for. I have had so many men in my family save their entire life for retirement, dreaming of what it will be like after they work hard their entire life. Only to suffer a life changing illnesses and destroying all hope for the future they spent so many years dreaming to enjoy. It breaks my heart to have seen someone close to me set themselves up for a great life, full of family and enjoyment only to fall to something they never planned.

I guess I hope to express the message don’t give up today waiting on the future you hope and dream for. I have missed out on a lot of years hoping to reach “something” and when I have finally reached what it is I longed for in most cases it’s not what I was expecting. So my dreams for the future continued to bigger and better things.

I have given up so many years to this cycle of hopes and expectations. In most circumstances the feelings I had hoped for did not match the expectations I had. Today I am not quite where I want to be, and I’m satisfied and grateful for exactly what I have and where I am.

Right now, in this minute I’m building my future, every step, every action, who I decide to have in my life, how I treat my loved ones and how I give and love are all the little steps to my future.

“There is nothing in a caterpillar that tells you it’s going to be a butterfly”. – Richard Buckminster Fuller

I want to end conveying my gratitude for those in my life that helped me after I fell, picked me up and smacked my butt and told me to “get back in there” and for those who didn’t give up when times got hard. I also want to say thank you to those who are a part of my life now. My goals in life have changed extensively, I want to live today and beyond that I hope that my actions in life will guide me to a beautiful future.

Expect nothing and cherish everything, you never know when your life will change.

After reading that it took me a few seconds to process what it meant, “One is loved because one is loved”, how can someone that has never experienced love share love?

I know that some of my readers will automatically think, “Everyone has felt love” why I do believe that everyone has felt love without a balance of continual love both receiving and giving the feelings of resentment and bitterness set in. I have been on both sides of this and each has its own struggles.

(Today I love my mother and father so what I am about to say no longer resides in my heart, however for a time in my life it did)

As a child I remember fighting, fear and abandonment. My father left my life about the age of 3-4 for reasons I did not understand until I myself became an adult. I’m not saying it was right or wrong, what I’m saying is that I understand it. Shortly after I was born my mother and father got pregnant with my brother Matt, I believe it’s referred to as “Irish Twins” and due to many complications he died shortly after birth. As a parent I cannot comprehend what that would feel like nor ever want to. My father and mother both found relief in drugs and alcohol, and I do not blame them, I’m not sure I wouldn’t as well.

After a few years of struggling my father moved to Florida to attempt to hide from the pain, only to learn that you cannot run from a pain that is inside. He began a new family in Florida and I would visit once a year, usually over summer vacation.

My mother fought as a single mother, struggling to raise a child alone without a steady income. She did what she could and I appreciate her for that!

However during this time in my life I felt very alone. No brothers or sisters at this time and a single mother striving to feed and provide for her son. I remember staying with relatives, moving schools almost yearly and never feeling comfortable or a place to call home.

The point to all this is not pity, it’s to show the past does not control the future and that growing up as chaotic and full of struggle does not always end in being an unsuccessful adult or parent.

For me it guided my decision making process into an “I don’t want that in my life or for my girls”.

Today I do not fear love, being alone or losing possessions. I cling to that fact that life will continue on no matter what you “plan” and that if you do not give love the chance of ever receiving it back is very unlikely.

Today I have a great job at a pharmaceutical company; I also work with my father and uncle at times side by side and truly enjoy it. I love my beautiful daughters like nothing on earth, spend time taking my mother to dinner when she is in town and loving my girlfriend like I would like to be loved, I still have love for my ex-wife for the years we had and mother of my daughters. I cannot change the past but I can make sure that my future does not repeat what I went through.

Love is absolutely free, why be greedy with love, generously give it even if you think they don’t deserve it, because I promise they are going through something you may not understand at the time. What if one day it all makes sense and you missed out on years of having a relationship because you felt they don’t deserve it. I know that feeling and let me tell you the years you miss will never come back. Life is too short to be so greedy.

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How often do you take a minute and look around? I have not been walking as much as I did last year, it has served its purpose so to speak. I am not taking the time to do it as much as I did. I do however miss the things I saw, the peace I felt and the freedom of the air, sun and sounds. I continue to make other priorities more important. I plan to take today (after I get out of work) and enjoy today to the fullest.

This quote was a great reminder to slow down and enjoy life; stop stressing about money. Yes we need it to live and we should work to live not live to work. Day after day I slowly drift from enjoying the little things to focusing more on work and “life” than enjoying it. I hope this is a reminder not only to me but others to slow down and take time to enjoy the little things in life.

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Today I have felt the need to write for most of the day. No matter what I was doing or who I was with the desire to let my words out was there nagging.

My day started off a little on the down side. Thought is was the weather, maybe it’s lack of going to the gym, diet change, stress.. maybe it’s a little all of them.

This is one of those times in my life I need to dig back in my posts and re-read some of the things I write and take some of my own advice.

This post isn’t about all that, because with the storm that is going on in my life at the moment, tomorrow is a special day. It’s the birthday of a wonderful woman and friend that I have completely fallen in love with.

I would like to tell a little story..

I wish I could say that we met one sunny day and it was love at first sight, no not in this story and its definitely not because she lacks beauty. It’s because I was in a bad place when we met and wanted a friend not another relationship. Her always positive attitude was exactly what I needed.

So we talked and walked and began to feel the shell I placed on my heart fall away. We met here and there for few months, coffee at Biggby, little walks at my favorite place, the Flats and she likes sushi. Day after day, night after night I started to feel a calm and my mind began to slow it’s spin. One day lead to another, one good night message was always followed by a good morning. That was a little over a year ago now and I still look forward to her good morning message like a breath of fresh air.

Tomorrow is September 9th and her birthday, she does not like to make a big deal about it or be the center of attention. But if any of you know me, I enjoy the little things and have no problem helping it feel like a celebration. it’s a day for her so I felt the need to express how thankful I am for her. I have met many people in my life, some are still in my life others have drifted away and I can say that not many have made such a lasting impression on my heart as Jen.

From the first time we talked we had a strange connection, even our children call it creepy at times. Some of the things we did, words we said and even expressions we make were exact. We still fill in one another’s words on accident all the time and it’s always the same response “yup”.

That “yup” mean so much to me and I am so appreciative of what we share. I hope that you read this and that you would go out of your way for the one you love a little extra tomorrow because that is the kind of woman Jen is. Tomorrow is her day and I hope it’s a great day!

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“About most subjects, there is not “The Truth;” there is merely one’s personal truth”. – Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Getting the two confused has created most of the issues I struggled to overcome in my life. I have what I think is the truth and fight to see past what “I know” to be true. Sometimes proving my illusions wrong has been a far better teacher than finding the truth in the end. It’s about the path to get there more than the destination.

Lately I have been thinking about my life, where I have been, where I am now and where I am going in the future and the more I let go of what I “know” the better, lighter and more free I feel.

When I was 10 I remember having a conversation with my step father, I said “on day I will be a mechanic and work on cars just like you”. I knew it in my heart that I would; I didn’t become or peruse a position as a mechanic but at the time I was SO sure I knew that would be my future.

Sometimes what we know is holding back from becoming anything more, at least for me it has. I found safety in my family and I was perfectly fine staying right where I was despite everything around me failing.

Seeing what was really going on in my life is becoming easier as I strip away what I think I know and embrace the possibility that I could be wrong and holding on too tightly to things of the world. I am at a point in my life that I have never experienced and a freedom to choose what I want and how I want it. I find myself standing in one place more than I have in the past and thinking a lot less about the details of the future.

Life is very bizarre, one day everything can feel perfect and the next it’s the worst day you have ever had. It’s all subjective and it’s all a choice about how we perceive what we “know” is happening and what is really happening.

If I were to give a summary of my life right now I could summarize it in a few short sentences.

Until now my life was one missed expectation after another, plans for the future modified one after another until I forgot what I was struggling for and confusion about what was important in my life. Now I care less about sticking according to plan and more about living for today and loving without expectations.

I have also found the less I have the more I feel in life. My possessions, the emotions I feel and the experiences I share mean so much more when I am not focused too far in the future. I’m happy to say I love where I am, with who I have this time to spend and for as long as I have to spend it. I also have a fraction of what I had 2 years ago, yet my heart is more at peace than it has ever been.